I See You
by LuminereLucifer
Summary: A test subject trapped in the facility begins to question things going on around them One-Shot


**Credit where credit is due: this was partly inspired by the live action film "No Escape" by Dan Tratchenberg. Portal belongs to VALVE :3 If you want some atmosphere while listening, try Android Hell form the game's soundtrack. Unfortunatley, watty wouldn't let me attatch it, for unkown reasons. Hope you enjoy this~**

"Searching."

I can hear their eerie, inhuman voices right around the corner I'm slumped up against.

"Are you still there?"

The beam of light teases at the corner of my vision, perfectly circular where it meets the wall and stares out of the whiteness like an angry red eye. But I focus, I stare straight ahead. Opposite me there is a stelated crack in the uniform panels, smeared with scarlet liquid, adhorned with yawning black holes from the firing of bullets. I no longer have the resolve nor the energy to be disgusted by the thoughts of how such an imperfection came to smear the otherwise pristine surface.

The device in my hands shines in the harsh white light like a knife. It's curved, slippery in my sweaty hands, fragile enough that if I smashed it against the wall it would shatter into fragments. Fragile and useless.

When I close my eyes, I see the symbol dance behind my lids, eight arrows interlocked like black bones. Trapped in an infinite circle, in an exhausted, futile pursuit.

I cannot recall when I last slept or ate. My tongue should feel like sandpaper in my mouth from thirst, but it does not. The memories from before are unclear, as if I am watching another person through a heat-haze. All there is are tests, puzzle after puzzle until by brain feels like it's been smashed to a pulp with a mallet and shoved back inside my head.

She is quiet now. I have yet to see her face to face. Her voice tells me she is not human, but her words make me wonder. Without her comments, I have no way to tell how much time has passed. No way to tell if any time has passed at all.

Maybe, an eternity ago, I was curious. I paused in the halls, stared, naive, at the flickering screen that displayed all the possible ways in which my demise might take place. The stick-men drowned in squiggly black lines of water, emotionless and emotionless, like actors in a play, unable and unwilling to even question their untimely fates.

I might trace a finger over these images, mull and muse over the number of test subjects who had died in this way. Had they families, friends? Had they remembered these people, or had their memories already become so fuzzy, so distant, that it seemed nothing more than a dream? An imagining? Something invented up sewn together out of desperation and hopelessness to validate their existence? Something to prove they _were. _

I began to doubt that my own vague collection of past experiences were even real, some time ago. Or, it could've been just moments ago. Was I just imagining up scenarios to keep total insanity at bay? Or had I already failed? I'd read somewhere that subjects in isolation begin to hallucinate surprisingly quickly. It had been too long...

My breathing remains ragged, and blood starts to soak through the orange cloth of my uniform that I've come to despise so much. I clench my teeth, but there is nothing I can use to bind the wound and stop the bleeding. I reckon in a sterile environment like this, it won't get disinfected anyway.

Eager to forge ahead, I try to hoist myself up, albeit shakily, my hand slipping on the smooth surface of the wall. It's painful, unbelievably so, and red spots cloud my vision. Several times, I fall back down, and lie panting unevenly before I can try again. I hope vainly that she will speak again, prompt me to move forward, just to hear something other than the constant adjustments of the turrets.

Finally, I struggle to my feet, swaying unsteadily as I do. The device slides from my hands, and I scramble for it, falling back onto my knees, and shuffling desperately as it rolls. My fingertips stop the rotation, and I breathe a momentary sigh of relief, before the thought crashes down on me.

I am exposed.

"I see you."


End file.
